The present disclosure concerns an applicator for applying a coating agent to a component, particularly for applying a sealant to a flanged seam on a rear side of a motor vehicle body component, the applicator particularly being able to project through a gap between two overlapping motor vehicle body components.
Motor vehicle body components (e.g. doors or bonnets) often have so-called flanged seams, in the case of which a sheet part is flanged around an edge of another sheet part, it then being possible to adhesively bond the two sheet parts to one another. Here, there is the danger that moisture penetrates into the gap between the two sheet parts and leads to corrosion there. It is therefore known to apply a sealant to the flanged seam between the two sheet parts in order to seal the flanged seam and, as a result, to reliably prevent the penetration of moisture and corrosion connected therewith.
When motor vehicle body doors are being coated, the sealant is typically applied to the flanged seam manually in practice by workers, who first open the relevant door and then apply the sealant to the flanged seam manually. As long as the sheets do not overlap, a manual application with the door closed is also possible.
However, the high outlay in terms of personnel and the associated costs are a disadvantage of this manual application of the sealant to the flanged seam.
Moreover, trial applications of the sealant to the flanged seam automatically by a coating robot have been carried out in the prior art. However, such trials for the automation of the application of the sealant have hitherto entailed considerable problems in practice, for various reasons.
On the one hand, the sealant could only be applied to the flanged seam in the case of doors and bonnets of motor vehicle bodies if the doors and bonnets are first opened, which entails additional outlay.
On the other hand, the application of the sealant to the flanged seam requires extremely high positional accuracy of the coating robot used, which is only possible with sensor-assisted positional control with readjustment of the position of the robot in accordance with the positional deviations detected. In automatic application of the sealant to the flanged seam, the outlay for equipment to achieve the necessary positional accuracy endangers the cost-effectiveness achievable by saving in terms of personnel.
An applicator is further known from the subsequently published German patent application DE 10 2007 037 865 B3 and corresponding U.S. Pat. Pub. No. US 2010/0075058, which generally disclose an automatic, robot-assisted application of sealant to a flanged seam. To this end, the known applicator has a flexible joint, as a result of which the requirements on the positional accuracy of the robot used are reduced.
Problematic in the case of the sealing of flanged seams in the region of motor vehicle doors is the fact that, on account of the crash-friendly construction of the motor vehicle doors, the motor vehicle doors move behind the respective wing in the closed state. This has the consequence that the applicator in accordance with the patent according to DE 10 2007 037 865 B3 and corresponding U.S. Pat. Pub. No. US 2010/0075058 cannot be pushed through the gap between the motor vehicle door and the wing, as these components overlap one another. In the case of the sealing of flanged seams in the region of motor vehicle doors, the motor vehicle doors must therefore hitherto be opened in order to make the flanged seams accessible for the application of the sealant.
The opening of the motor vehicle doors for the application of the sealant onto the respective flanged seam requires cycle time however, which gets lost for the actual application of the sealant. Under certain circumstances, this can lead to a plurality of operating cycles being required for the application of the sealant to the various flanged seams of the motor vehicle body.
Furthermore, the opening of the motor vehicle doors for the application of the sealant to the flanged seams generally requires an additional handling robot, which is associated with increased investment costs and a larger space requirement in the painting station.
Further, reference is also to be made to U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,441 as prior art.
Accordingly, there is a need for an applicator which makes it possible, without opening a motor vehicle door, to seal a flanged seam located on the rear side of the motor vehicle door with sealant.